CHHAPRA/ PATNA: A government rail police (GRP) team arrested a man after it recovered 16 human skulls and 34 femurs from his possession at Junction in on Monday.

According to Chhapra GRP SHO Suman Prasad Singh, arrested Sanjay Prasad has told police the skulls and femurs were meant to be smuggled to Bhutan for use by ‘tantriks’. The 29-year-old also confessed to having carried such consignments to Bhutan twice earlier.

A resident of a remote village on Indo-Bhutan border near Siliguri in West Bengal, Sanjay is a native of Paharpur police station area of Motihari in Bihar’s . A police team also went to Sanjay’s native house and was informed that he had left home 15 years back.

SHO Singh said the recovery was kept a secret for a day for effective preliminary investigation into it. One cellphone, one Nepalese sim card, two ATM cards, one PAN card, one voter identity card each of Siliguri and Paharpur were also seized from the possession of the smuggler.

“During a routine checking against liquor smuggling near the inquiry counter, the GRP personnel spotted suspicious movement of Sanjay. He was detained and his bag opened,” the SHO said and added Sanjay told police he had collected the consignment from another person at a river ghat in Ballia district in UP and boarded the Ballia-Sealdah Express train.

He got down at Chhapra around 11am on Monday and was on way to catch a bus to Siliguri, the SHO said and refused to divulge details of the prices at which Sanjay bought and sold the skeletons and femurs.

On October 12 this year, the Muzaffarpur GRP had recovered a human skull from a bag abandoned inside a general compartment of Lichchhavi Express which originates from Anand Vihar Terminal and terminates at Sitamarhi. Muzaffarpur GRP SHO Achchhe Lal said the skull had been sent for forensic tests. Download The Times of India for Latest .